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I live in a secluded gated subdivision of about 16 families. We used to do a community yard sale, but, nearby, Walmart started doing a bigger yard sale with a lemonade stand, and now no one comes to our yard sale.

edit: Okay I have like 6-7 people telling me how many walmarts they have in their 'town' (city in most cases). I have 4-5 within a 30minute (two within 15minutes) drive but they're all in different towns.

Most stores are designed to keep you walking around in the hopes that you'll impulse buy something. This aisle is designed to get the annoying college kids the fuck out of the store as quickly as possible.

I came here to say this. Walmart's ability to data collect sales and inventory allows them to show correlations between product purchases through some good Business intelligence. Must be some badass beer pong players in OP's hood.

My best friend from high school is a manager at a grocery store. In his town, there are a couple of schools - a state university and a small private college renowned for one division 1 sport. It's not really a "college" town, per se.

The two schools are about 5 miles apart, and his store isn't really near either of them, but it's near some cheap rental houses a lot of kids group together and rent out.

Anyway, he said that when he kept getting college kids requesting ping pong balls about 7-8 years ago, he was confused until somebody told him about beer pong. So he started buying ping pong balls.

They'd sell a few a week at a very nice markup (buy packs of six in boxes of like 240 for $60 or something, sell for $5.99 for a 6-pack of balls) but never really moved many of them.

Then he figured he'd put the plastic cups and ping pong balls on an end-cap near the beer aisle. Sales skyrocketed.

Right now, he said that ping pong balls and red and blue solo cups combine to make the highest-margin percentage product in the store, and the third highest margin dollars product.

I don't remember the exact number, but it was like selling 10 packs a week before to selling 20-30 packs a day now.

I think I can explain this. I work for the online services department at Walmart, but I'm close enough to the logistics and supply chain guys who might be responsible for this.

You see Walmart is a world leader at inventory management and supply chain planning. You can imagine that the decision for what to put on our shelves can be a very complex one, especially for such a globally distributed brand such as ours. There are seasonal variations in product demand, or spikes for particular products that can't be reasonably anticipated by a human being. An example of this would be a variation in cold flu medicine sales across several states. One area may have increased sales pattern that predicts an increase in another location, as the flu spreads across the region. These things vary year by year, and wouldn't be noticed by a human being, but can be anticipated using mathematical techniques.

To solve these problems we have built a very complex algorithmic process that takes in sales data in real time and directs our supply logistics operation to put particular products on the shelves. This has vastly increased the efficiency and productivity of our operations, cutting down on how long our products are sitting on shelves and providing our customers with the items they want, when they want them. It is almost entirely automated. It isn't perfect however, and I think this picture is an illustration of that. You can imagine when a public event happens somewhere (like a concert or something), massive amount of red cups, condoms, etc might be purchased. These things are scheduled in advance, but are singular events. On occasion the program will pick up a statistical pattern in these things, and 'predict' they will happen somewhere in the future. Usually we see this in the type of event that is statistically rare enough to happen on occasion, but common enough (and with enough similarity) for the computer to think there is a pattern. Almost always, a large amount of product ends up in a random store where none of it is needed. The staff at the store put it on the shelf like they are supposed to, but usually we get a call or the system flags it when the product hasn't sold. So I think that's probably what you're seeing here.

Yes, it is. And I know no one will probably see this, but I need to rant somehow. As a former Walmart employee, I recognized this as real immediately and it is a huge pet peeve of mine. While I do believe in the value of using data to increase sales, there were SO MANY shitty decisions passed down from corporate and imposed on ALL stores across the board basically because "the computer system said so." Just because something is a trend in a majority of areas does not mean it is the case everywhere. Also, shitty decisions perpetuate themselves.

Two examples from my time at Walmart:

We always used to run out of canned pumpkin on Thanksgiving. Every time I brought this up, I was told there was nothing that could be done because the computer did the ordering. Perhaps the systems are better now, but apparently at the time, the calculation was based largely on prior year sales. I tried in vain to point out that we couldn't sell what we didn't have, and as long as we were selling out, the computer would continue to under-predict for the next years.... ARGH.

We never had enough cashiers scheduled between 9 and 10 PM. From 9 - 9:15 the lines would get really long, then people would start walking out leaving carts full of perishable food that had to be thrown away. People walking into the store would often walk back out without buying anything. Again, I brought this up to management, and was told again that the computers did the scheduling based on data about the amount sales between 9 - 10 PM. ARGH!!! Our sales are low because our lines are long!!! It's a cycle!!!

OK, anyone who reads this, thanks for listening!

EDIT: yes, I read the username. Even if this specific poster happens to be BSing, it's definitely a reflection of my experiences.

1) College parties generally have kegs; so no cans unless its a University sanctioned event. Cans are much more expensive; a keg of Natty was roughly 157 beers and could be had for around $36 (PBR, Rolling Rock, etc was similar) plus deposit and tap rental (not a cost if you owned a tap). A case of the same might run you 12, so you're talking 90 beers vs 157 for the same price. Alcohol budgets are usually off book, cash slush funds, so its important to make every dollar count. (Edit: I wanted to just add that cans reduce the likelihood of binge drinking / no keg stands, and artificially impose a higher financial constraint on the party thrower and restrict the overall availability of alcohol/poison— many universities now have such policies for sanctioned/legal student drinking in response to specific incidents over the years.)

2) Size / Durability Solo Cups carry a lot of liquid (16oz, others are often smaller). When it takes 10 minutes to get to the front of the keg line, or back through the house etc... its important to be able to have a full beer or beverage, and it gets girls drunker. Similar size plastic cups exist, but have several drawbacks, including nonstandard rim diameter, and being generally flimsier (and won't necessarily last the whole night).

3) Open container laws — a Beer Can with branding is probable cause for a stop to determine if it contains beer. A Red Cup is not. I'm not saying you'll get out of it if you walk around the streets of NYC with a Red Cup full of beer, but its a factor. Similarly, clear cups allow you to see what color liquid is in the container; if it looks like beer, you can be stopped. If you're drinking a vodka soda in a clear cup, no big deal, but beer, you're toast. This becomes more problematic if the people drinking are under 21; the question is not just one of open container, but of providing alcohol to a minor — the difference to a cop being fucking with snot-nosed kids for 20 minutes versus serious charges against one or several guys who think they're hot shit at a local campus. While you wouldn't have much incentive to fight an open container bust on probable cause, if you were the one throwing the party about to be charged when a kid gets caught with a beer from your party, your lawyer will fight tooth and nail to prove you weren't the one who gave them the beer and the best way to do that is often to show that the stop was illegal in the first place.

4) Beer pong / beirut — Red Solo Cups are the established normal cup size for beer pong. If you and your mates were to play some football, you wouldn't use a kickball, or basketball, or some other random sized object, you would use a regulation size Soccer Ball. This is the exact same thing; and on college campuses, beer pong is taken about as seriously as the Premiere League or the World Cup. In fact, for warm up games and down time practice at my fraternity, we would use much smaller clear cups (blind fold ourselves, and play with vodka) so that when it was a party night and the chips were on the line, playing with standard solo cups and beer was like playing wiffle ball. Blue cups are usually dixie, and are slightly squatter and slightly wider in diameter, making beer pong even easier, or throw off your muscle memory. Red Solos are considered standard. Also, Flip Cup.

5) Branding/psychology — red is everyones favorite color and symbolizes a bunch of emotions and thoughts which sync up nicely with partying; like energy, love, etc... blue traditionally represents calmer feelings which are more disjunct with a party environment; a hot girl doesn't wear her blue dress when she wants some attention, she wears red. I've seen yellow and blue, but red is just more common — its easier to find in stores and just more popular. Sort of how people like McDonalds more than BK, and Coke more than Pepsi, and sports teams which where red tend to win more frequently. The only difference might be a stop light party, where the color of your cup will indicate your availability for sex.

6) Entertainment reflects pop culture which then reenforces pop culture — when you watch a tv show or a movie, everything about it has been carefully considered to read as fast as possible; the sounds you hear are not what something really sounds like, but the archetype of what it SHOULD sound like in your head. Same with the images, and therefore while the reality on the street may be that clear cups were much cheaper and you and your friends were broke, so you got the clear cups, a production company is 9/10 times going to make the decision that Red reads faster and more clearly says party, so thats what you see. Additionally, there are a lot of broadcast standards and practices in the US when it comes to showing alcohol or drinking on television; cups help that. This then has the effect of re-enforcing the stereotype in college kids minds, and causes them to buy those cups when they can afford them or when the price is similar.

That help?

Edit: Also, the drinking age is 21 not 18, which I thought was universally known, but may be helpful to point out as the origin of party as opposed to pub culture.

And happy Cinco De Mayo!!! It's now Margarita O'clock, in a Red Party Cup, of course.

Just to elaborate a little on #6, I am an on-set prop person, and we do use red cups on purpose because they are a kind of code. Since the drinking age is 21, if we show a high school party where kids are getting drunk, we have to show it but not show it, if you know what I mean. Red cups communicate to viewers who understand reality that the kids are drinking alcohol, while allowing the network to maintain plausible deniability. We also "red cup" ourselves after work on premises for exactly the same reason.

My alma mater (small private university, 90% of people live on campus all 4 years in either dorms or student apartments) banned kegs in the 90s for the reasons you listed in #1. My personal opinion having gone and partied hard there is that the ban doesn't prevent anyone who wants to get wasted from doing so anyway because 1) liquor is still around and easy to get away with having open to party guests since it can be hidden away easily if the uni cops do show up, and 2) people who wanted big parties just stocked their main fridge and several mini-fridges in the dining and living rooms with hoards of cans instead. Split the cost of a party between 3 or 4 apartment-mates, and even buying cans isn't very expensive (at least not in Virginia- Natty Light, PBR, etc. are around $13/case and are sold at every grocery store).

If you ask me, the real reason kegs and mixed drink tubs/coolers were banned was so the university could better cover its ass from lawsuits in alcohol-poisoning cases ("well, it's not our fault they broke the rules and had jungle juice/liquor tubs"). I don't believe for a second the absence of kegs curbs college drinking when I can't name a single person I went to school with who didn't binge drink at least occasionally, if not often. Our parties were no different in terms of how drunk people got compared to parties at my high school friends' colleges that I visited on weekends every so often. College kids are gonna get drunk.

I should have said "in theory" cans reduce binging; I tend to agree that they do not in practice, given that we became masters at circumventing the policies enacted (not that I did, only that I knew how to).

The more intelligent policies involve restricting the amount of cans to a multiple of the anticipated party goers, using 3rd party registered bartenders, having wrist bands, then having external security at a fixed ratio of party goers (more beers, equals more guests, requires more security), and opening your party to sanctioned monitors. Even these are easily to get around with intelligent planning, bribes, additional alcohol in private rooms, and co-ordinated communications systems.

I do actually think it has a dampening effect for the casual partier who isn't really going to seek out the extras, but fact of the matter is yes, in college, if you want to get fucked up, you will find a way.

I was more pointing this out for people who may not be aware of it. Many of these policies simply did not exist before about 10 years ago, and outside the States, its probably very weird to hear how involved in alcohol monitoring some institutions are. Beer cans say alcohol not just to the police, but to the university itself; whereas a party cup just says a party, without being explicit about the consumption of alcohol, and whether the event needs to be monitored.

That said, cans really were fundamentally more expensive — you wouldn't get your deposit back, and you would get about 1/3rd to 1/2 less beers, even less once you took into account added security and other costs; plus there are the behavioral aspects of a can of beer consumed over x amount of time is factually less likely to give you alcohol poisoning than shots, hard liquor, mixed drinks, even wine.

And absolutely its to cover its ass from lawsuits. Ivy league schools basically implemented them only after a major local incident involving a death, severe injury, or some other stupid event, but would largely ignore it even if it happened at a similar university.

For those of you looking for a great can-based binge drinking game, look into Wizard Staff. My personal twist to the rule is rather than setting White Wizard at level 10, you try to drink your own height. I had a friend who was 6'7" that made it to wizard status before me...

The reality is that in most other places in the world, including England, if you are old enough for university you are also legal drinking age. Disposable cups and kegs are a great way to get anonymously drunk at 18 in the US. Carrying your favorite stein around is usually a big giveaway to campus police of your dubious intentions. Personally I wish it weren't, because drinking from a family crested and engraved 1 liter goblet is way cooler that trotting around with a plastic cup that belongs at a 10 year olds birthday party.

Yeah, that's why I made the edit. I belatedly realized that I missed one of the most obvious points. I was, and still am, drunk. So.... whatever. Beer Steins with crests and mottos are excellent; I actually have one, the problem, however, is that in America, it can piss a lot of people off because most don't know their heritage past a couple generations, so you're viewed as being a blue blooded twat.

A possible side note; Red Solo cups are also pretty darn durable when it comes to a party environment. You see them knocked off tables all the time during pong/flip cup or whatever and they almost never crack or break. You have to step on one deliberately or something of that nature to destroy one. And hey, since it's plastic, even if it falls on the floor - wash it out quick in the sink and you're good to go!

Easier to drink booze from when you aren't of legal drinking age (21 here). If you're holding a can or bottle, it's pretty obvious to passing cops that you're boozing up. On college campuses with even stricter drinking laws, this is extra important.

If its in a cup, there's deniability for both the kid and the cops, so you rarely get busted for drinking from them unless you're acting like a dumbass.

Certain states in the south (wish Oklahome and Texas were included) have what people call red cup laws. Basically a drink in a secondary container is whatever you say it when a cops asks. Awesome for underage drinking.

Those red cups have legendary status over here in the UK. I remember at my coursemate's 19th birthday pre-drinks he had a beer pong table set up with the red cups and people lost their shit on seeing it;

"OMG, its just like the Americans do it!"

I've never seen so much excitement over plastic.

Also, I went with a mate to the hardware shop near mine recently and we asked the guy for a metre of tubing, to which he replied;

"You guys making a beer bong?"

"Aye, can you grab us the stuff?"

He then went into a little room at the back and brought a funnel and tubing out, apparently its a popular order so they have stuff on hand aha.